Specifically Pacific

Serena Markstrom

Friday

Apr 30, 2010 at 12:01 AM

Paid staffing for the inaugural Cinema Pacific multimedia festival is at a minimum, but the students who have been working on it have benefited from the expertise of Richard Herskowitz, who for 15 years directed the Virginia Film Festival.

Herskowitz moved to Eugene a year and a half ago after his wife, Jill Hartz, became the executive director of the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art. As serendipity would have it, the University of Oregon also had an interest in developing a major film festival with a public programming component.

During Herskowitz’s tenure as creative director, the Virginia Film Festival got a reputation as one of the nation’s finest, attracting luminaries ranging from Sandra Bullock to Roger Ebert. Herskowitz earned respect among movie industry movers and shakers by creating programming around compelling themes and for emphasizing discussion.

Herskowitz is not trying to duplicate the Virginia Film Festival here, but his festival experience and his connections could help the Northwest in its continuing efforts to establish a film production industry.

“The key thing there is I have (almost) always done my film programming in connection with universities, bringing ideas from film studies to the general public,” Herskowitz said in an interview. In Virginia, “A lot of people appreciated the opportunity to have conversations with filmmakers and different critical experts.”

Starting Wednesday, but with the bulk of the events happening May 7-9, Cinema Pacific will take place on the University of Oregon campus, online, at the Bijou and in downtown Eugene. Audience members will engage in dialogues with film directors and actors from the United States and abroad through teleconferences and live appearances.

“This festival is doing the same thing a lot of festivals are doing right now, which is investigating ways to connect the on-site live experience with the online experience,” Herskowitz said. “That’s the direction I see film festivals headed in the future.”

Each year, Cinema Pacific organizers will choose a different country from the Pacific Rim — this year it’s Korea — and focus deeply on its cinema.

The Bijou will screen many of the selected Korean films, plus Netflix clients will have a batch of films to choose from online.

“This is a very curated festival, so the idea is that we take a country each year and we explore it in depth so that it is not just new films from that country,” Herskowitz said, noting China is next year’s choice.

Starting Thursday, the festival features a complete retrospective of the work of director Bong Joon-ho, whom Hersko­witz considers one of the greatest filmmakers in the world right now. Each film will have an introduction by a person with expertise related to the film’s content.

“As broad as Cinema Pacific seems, it’s actually very focused in that we pick one country and give it a special emphasis,” he said. “About a third of our program explores that country in depth, then there’s the online stuff we do.

“I am very conscious of that. I don’t want the thing to be so amorphous of the whole Pacific Ocean.”

Marketing Oregon movies

Another part of the festival’s mission is to inspire those who live in this part of the Pacific Rim to create films of their own.

That outreach will happen directly through participation in a three-day film production workshop called Adrenaline Film Project, during which teams and individuals will create films under the guidance of guest mentors. Those 15-minute shorts will be screened May 8.

Herskowitz pointed out that one of the Adrenaline mentors, Jeff Wadlow, got into filmmaking after he watched Roger Ebert do a shot-by-shot workshop on “Citizen Kane” at the Virginia Film Festival.

State officials are very much behind all the efforts to increase Oregon’s stake in the film industry, one of festival’s longer-term goals.

Vince Porter, executive director of Governor’s Office of Film and Television, said in a news release that Cinema Pacific is shaping up to be a destination event.

“At the film office, we are always looking to discover new ways to market Oregon as a place for film and television production,” Porter said. “And I believe Cinema Pacific will help elevate the film industry’s profile in the state.”

The boxing film “Chamaco” is one example of Oregon making waves in the movie industry.

Scott Chambers, of Chambers Productions in Eugene, executive produced the film, which screens May 7 at Robinson Theatre. It stars Kirk Harris, Alex Perea and Martin Sheen and was shot in Mexico City.

“It is fitting to premiere our first feature film along with the university’s premiere year of Cinema Pacific,” Chambers said in a news release.

If festivals that merge education and entertainment have any reason to exist, Hersko­witz said, it is to raise the quality and quantity of regional film productions.

“I believe one way it does it is by showing great movies from other parts of the world and other time periods,” he said. That makes for “better audiences and more aware audiences, and that inspires better filmmaking.

“But seeing these films also inspires filmmakers to emerge.”

Call Serena Markstrom at 541-338-2371 or e-mail her at serena .markstrom@ registerguard.com.

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